A new scale can effectively gauge how young adults feel when they have been drinking and predict the associated negative consequences, research finds. The words young adults use to describe how they feel when they’ve been drinking are a key to researchers understanding whether they will engage in risky behaviors such as driving under the influence. “We wanted to understand which words young adults are using because they are at the highest risk for substance misuse,” says Ashley Linden-Carmichael, assistant research professor of health and human development in the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center at Penn State and the study’s principal investigator. “We need a consensus on how young adults talk about the effects of alcohol, so we can measure the effects correctly.”